I see two scenarios here, both disturbing.

A)  Someone is impersonating the girl.  This would be very easy to do, though a bit time consuming.  What if someone was impersonating you by creating ‘your’ blog?  What damaging content could they post?  How could you prove that you were not the author of the blog?  Would it even be possible to determine who was the real author?  All I can say is I’m going to keep that Google Alert for my name; though I should figure out how to filter it so that I don’t keep getting hits for Claire Thompson the S and M novelist.

B)  No one is impersonating the girl.  She just showed a real lack of knowledge thinking that she could treat her blog, with her name on it, like a personal diary; full of intimate details that only she could read.  This is a dangerous lack of knowledge.  We have to do a better job of educating our kids about the internet.  In my day teens could make mistakes, sometimes pretty big ones, but they didn’t do it on-line, for the whole world to see, forever…    

Each day more and more kids have easy unfettered access to the internet via cell phones, the iPod touch, and whatever those new gameboy thingy’s are called.  No longer can we rely on just keeping the family computer in the kitchen (though that’s still a good idea) or on having programs like Net Nanny or Agent Bob (a program my husband developed) on the aforementioned family computer. We’ve got to give the kids the skills to make good decisions on-line.

Vendo iPod touch 16 GB by juanpol

Are you aware of these sorts of issues occuring with your students?  Does your school address digital citizenship/literacy in an adequate way or is it just a piecemeal process?
Technorati Tags: digital literacy